HBP

[emony]

I read the first two parts of the JKR interview with Melissa from The Leaky Cauldron and Emerson from Mugglenet at lunchtime today, and I was also talking via lj with nausica2 about some of the post-HBP fallout across the fandom. The interview hasn't mentioned (and undoubtedly won't) S/R at all, and only brushed on the R/T, with both Melissa and Emerson expressing their surprised at it. But they did mention the H/Hr, or lack of same. If I were a H/Hr shipper, I think I would've been more angry by the comments in the interview than anything that did or didn't happen in the book. A book you can see your own way, and there are always ways around whatever happens (see above, re: S/R post-OOTP!), but some of the things they were saying, not about the H/Hr ship, but about the *fans* seemed to me to be unnecessarily cruel and really inappropriate in an interview that's meant to be for *all* adult fans of HP. Okay, so H/Hr isn't going to happen (in the books). That doesn't make the H/Hr fans a bunch of delusional whackjobs just because they saw things differently. They aren't the lunatic fringe. They just have a different opinion.

It's really rather Gryffindor of them all, I think. The opinion that they must be right and anyone who doesn't see it the same way is not different but *stupid*. It's also the same sort of childish behaviour we had in Stargate fandom after the disaster that was season 4. I suppose that's why I'm feeling sympathy with the H/Hr shippers right now, even though I'm definitely not one myself.

I can understand JKR saying what she did. To her it's obviously going to be Hr/R and H/G, because she wrote it and can only see it the one way. Even if she does appreciate that other people might see it differently, she has the definative answer in her head because it's her book and they're her characters and she probably doesn't see how anyone could really see it differently than she intended it.

But Emerson, and Melissa although she wasn't as bad imo, ought to know better. I got the impression, although I don't know Mugglenet as a site, that Emerson is a "my way or the highway" sort of chap who gives anyone who doesn't share his views very short shrift. On his own site, fine. Whatever. I don't know his editorial policy on anything - it might be entirely fairly run, with his bias present but entirely clear and not in any way hidden, which is certainly one way to do things. But when you're doing an interview like this, you've got this huge opportunity, it seems so wrong to use it as an opportunity to gloat over other fans. "Look, *my* pairing was right, *your* pairing was wrong - haha!" It's.. well, to bring it down to the simple truth of it all, it's just not very nice.

Now I'm a Hr/R shipper. Always have been, always knew they'd get together eventually. I don't really see where the H/Hr comes from in the books. But lots of people do. And I think that's something that ought to be respected, especially now.

So yeah. That's what I thought about all that.

Comments

[apolla.livejournal.com]

If I were a H/Hr shipper, I think I would've been more angry by the comments in the interview than anything that did or didn't happen in the book.

That was EXACTLY what everyone I spoke to last night thought (although I didn't talk to every single H/Hr shipper ever, of course)... but we knew that no matter WHAT response we gave, no matter how reasonably we objected, that there would be some (not all) of 'the other side' who would just say "you're just bitter because you didn't get what you want."

Until last night, 95% of my flist was happy to accept HBP as it was. It wasn't until we felt mocked, belittled and all of that, that we raised our objections in public.

You know, I was talking to a couple of people last night (lots of people actually) and a lot of them were saying their R/Hr flist was being less than gallant. I said "I only have one R/Hr person I can think of, and I know she'll be cool about it." And I was so very, very right.

Thank you dear girl, for restoring my faith in humanity a little more.

[emony.livejournal.com]

Like I say, I think I sort of feel some of what you're going through because I've been there too - season 4 of Stargate, after 3 solid years of believing that there was no Sam/Jack, and amidst ever-heightening tension between the two "factions" of fans - those who shipped Sam/Jack on the one side, and those who slashed Jack/Daniel on the other (plus a few gen fans who just didn't want any ship in the show) - there was suddenly canon Sam/Jack. All hell broke loose. It was awful. The more militant faction of shippers behaved much in the way that some R/Hr fans here are behaving, and the J/D fans fought back, and before long it had all descended into name-calling (I'm "nefarious", incidentally. Yeah, me) and fighting and trying to get people sacked and being stalked at conventions and all sorts.

The point of that dull meander down memory lane is that I've been the fan who doesn't get their pairing, and it sucks, but what sucks more is being subjected to abuse by those fans who feel the need to prove their superiority by gloating.

Also, it has to be said, you really did make me reconsider my attitude a bit in terms of ships. After the bad experience I'd had in Stargate fandom, it was really nice to be able to talk to someone of a different ship persuasion without all that tension. It is indeed possible to be friends with someone who ships differently to you, and if you just respect their ship and their right to ship whoever they want, then when it comes to it - either way - you're going to behave in an appropriately respectful manner to the outcome of that ship, whether your ship happens or theirs does or no one's does.

Personally I wonder why it is that so many R/Hr fans feel the need to crow their supposed victory so loudly. If they really weren't in any doubt about R/Hr, if they really felt that it was right and justified in canon and whatever, why does it matter so very much that they were "right" and anyone else was "wrong". What is it that they're trying to prove, and why do they feel that the H/Hr fans are such a threat that they need to do so?

I could go on, but I think I'm just rambling now. Sorry. The basic point is - rock on. We'll always have fanfic :)

[nausica2.livejournal.com]

We've been talking about it, but word.

I'm also a R/Hr shipper, and I adore both of them, but I can understand people who watched the movies first can like H/Hr because in the first two movies there are hints and also in the third, imo.

And in a book it's easy to find stuff to support your views, unless the contrary stated. Yeah, some shippers have gone out of control, and I guess there have been huge fan wars, but Emerson was there in a "professional" way, with a golden chance and he has behaved as if he only wanted vindication.

Bad boy. Remus would never do that. ;))))

[emony.livejournal.com]

I can understand people who saw the films shipping H/Hr, especially POA. My colleagues have become fascinated by HP recently (seriously, it's odd), and my colleague N, who hasn't read the books but has (I think) seen the films said something about how he thought Harry and Hermione ("the girl witch, you know..") would get together. I can understand people who've read the books seeing H/Hr too, because, like you say, everyone reads the books differently. Every interpretation is slightly different - that's why we all take different things away from it, that's why we all have different favourite characters, and that's why we all have different ships, and different views of those ships. I sometimes wonder if the people who write fic where Draco Malfoy turns out to be a beautiful, altruistic, merely misunderstood person who loves kittens and puppies and opens a muggle orphanage in the manor, are actually reading the same books as I am - but they are. They're just interpreting it differently. So I get where the ship comes from in that sense. I don't see it myself, but I can see that other people have the facility to see it. If that makes sense.

It's weird, I keep finding myself getting confused between that actual Maurauder-era canon of the books and shoebox_project. Like when I was reading the interview, and they were talking about Lily's courage, and I was like, "yeah, she was so great at the funeral.." and it took me a while before I remembered that actually that wasn't *canon* canon, it was SBP canon! *g* But I agree - Remus would never behave that way. He's just too decent, bless him. *loves*

[odycee.livejournal.com]

I keep finding myself getting confused between that actual Maurauder-era canon of the books and shoebox_project

Heh. You're not the only one! I actually forget how little Maurauder-era canon there really is.

[odycee.livejournal.com]

I don't ship any of the younger generation (actually, I don't ship anyone other than Sirius/Remus but that's beside the point!) but I still thought that the comments they all were making were rather cruel. Yes, I did think that Hr/R was what JKR was hinting at, but at the end of the day, people don't always read things the same way.

I'm glad there was no mention of Sirius/Remus because I don't want to see JKR squash it. Not that I would take any notice even if she did! I'd like to say that I don't understand any of this wankery, but if I'm honest, I did have to bite the corner of my bed sheet to stop myself actually shouting 'what the fuck?!' at the Remus/Tonks scene in the infirmary. Because seriously, WTF? Random much? But then I thought about it like a sane person and thus didn't wank everywhere.

[emony.livejournal.com]

Exactly. It's just about respecting other people's ships, and having enough faith in your own that you don't feel the need to prove them to those who disagree.

I agree absolutely on the R/T front. I was really surprised that that was what she was going for. I never expected R/S to be acknowledged canon, but I did honestly hope that it could remain unacknowledged canon. And I think it probably still can, if you look at it right. As you say, as long as JKR doesn't outright nix it, we're okay, and even then it's still going to be there for those as choose to see it. I think there's always an instinct towards some leve of wankery - it's shock and seeking comfort in those who agree with you. But it's an instinct that has to be balanced out with good sense, which for you (and, I hope, I) it has been. We might not like the R/T, but we know we've got to live with it and work around it. If comments like those made about H/Hr fans had been made about R/S fans, we'd probably feel a little different. Things will settle down soon enough, though, I think. This article will keep it going for a while longer, but once it's passed into the ether, it'll level out and things will get back to normal. I hope.